


loving him was blue

by cosmicwoosan



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Hair Dyeing, M/M, Self-Esteem Issues, Slice of Life, hongjoong is a musician, inspired by a tweet, mingi is there for 2 seconds, san likes pastel, seonghwa is kinda sad, so is yeosang, yunho plays the trombone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:29:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26317210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicwoosan/pseuds/cosmicwoosan
Summary: If he were to slap a beanie or a cap or a crown over his head, his hair would still be his hair, no matter the color. His name would still be Kim Hongjoong, he would still play the guitar, he would still know how to do magic tricks, he would still have bigger than average teeth and his eyes would be the same shape.He could change the outside all he wants, but nothing can erase what’s built into him. No amount of bleach could wash away the colors that are engrained within.-Hongjoong dyes his hair whenever he falls in or out of love—that is, until he discovers what it actually feels like.
Relationships: Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 206





	loving him was blue

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this fic was inspired by [this](https://twitter.com/sharkhwa/status/1301488300872683520?s=20) tweet. i saw it and thought 'oh man this is right up my alley!" the plot is just a teensy bit different and i took it in a sort of different direction, but i hope you all enjoy nonetheless
> 
> this fic is one work, but it's split into three parts: red, blue, and black. red is told from joong's pov, blue is hwa's, and black is... you'll see.
> 
> brought to you by:  
> red - taylor swift  
> colors - halsey

**I. Red**

Hongjoong’s mother lets him dye his hair for the first time when he’s thirteen. He’d actually wanted to dye his hair since he was six after seeing a boy group on the TV, with all of them having some color of dyed hair. He wanted his hair to be red like his favorite member, so that’s the color his mother lets him have once he’s deemed old and mature enough to maintain it.

The fiery red of his hair makes him the most popular and unpopular kid in class. People stare in awe or disgust, depending on whether their parents are like Hongjoong’s or not. Those who like Hongjoong’s hair compliment him on it. Those who don’t snicker when they think he’s not listening and enjoy throwing pea-sized crumpled up pieces of paper at his back. Of course, that’s middle school, and Hongjoong is quite aware that the mental capacity of pubescents isn’t exactly that grand. At thirteen years of age, he considers himself to be relatively mature.

So, as a ‘fuck you’ to the kids who don’t like him, he adds black highlights to his red hair and learns cheap card tricks. His goal: to be the most obnoxious kid in the class in the attempt to find people who will like him for him.

Hongjoong’s parents find it very peculiar when they find their son practicing card tricks at night when he should be doing his homework, but he just smiles at them and assures he’s already done it. And that’s the truth. He’s already done with his homework whenever he practices his magic.

When his mother asks why he’s learning magic, he answers with, “Because I need _friends_ , eomma. Real ones. Ones that see past the illusions I put forward. Ones that understand the reason why I dye my hair.”

His mother chuckles at him and runs her slender fingers through his black cherry locks. “What color do you want to do next, sweetie?”

“I don’t know yet,” he tells her. “I’ll figure it out when I get there.”

🟥

At his school’s talent show, Hongjoong sings an original piece he composed on the guitar. It’s about as old as he is and the strings are curled past the tuning keys, but nothing twangs quite like them. His father got it at a garage sale for maybe one percent of its original worth, but after having it fixed up a little bit at the local music shop, it worked decently.

The spotlight is on him and his strawberry red hair. The acoustics in the auditorium suck, but Hongjoong makes it work. He calls the song ‘Magic’ and it’s about falling in love, even though Hongjoong has no fucking clue what love feels like at just thirteen years old. He sings about what he _imagines_ it feels like, mostly metaphors that the other kids in his class don’t think twice about, but it still captivates the audience of both students and parents alike. His mother records it on her camcorder and there are tears in her eyes when he’s done.

He doesn’t win, but he didn’t expect to. He doesn’t blame it on his hair or his musical ability or his competition. He simply smiles and accepts the fact that there are always going to be other winners in life.

At the end of the showcase, when students and parents mingle and congratulate one another on their kids and the achievements they hold under their belts, a girl in Hongjoong’s class gives him her number. She has chubby cheeks and long, shiny black hair that she will probably dye a lighter color sometime in the future.

Hongjoong texts her that night and they arrange a movie date that weekend. His mother is ecstatic.

🟥

Hongjoong learns her favorite color is pink. A milky pink specifically.

Filling up his bathroom with chemical scents and a milky pink haze, he dyes his hair again much to his mother’s dismay, but he promises to clean up after himself and accept whatever damage follows the procedure. His mother just sighs at him and smiles before exiting the bathroom, leaving a mess of newspaper and a very determined Hongjoong to himself.

When his girlfriend of three months sees his new hair, she takes one look at the people around them and scutters away somewhere down the hall.

Hongjoong dyes his hair red again a month after seeing such disapproving stares. He also stops doing magic tricks for the rest of middle school.

🟥

No matter the amount of all-natural (or not so all-natural) products Hongjoong treats his hair with, it still doesn’t feel like hair, but it feels _right_. When his roots grow, he bleaches them again and makes sure to keep his head at one color. His mother starts to grow worried, worried that her son might actually have a problem, but what is there? An addiction to dyeing hair?

He’s happy, she reminds herself. He wants to look at himself in the mirror and appreciates what he sees. He wants to be himself, even if that means standing out amongst the crowd of ruthless teenagers and their unrelenting criticisms.

And because of that, she is incredibly proud.

“What’s your favorite color?” he asks her one day while they’re out shopping.

“Mm, I’d have to say green,” she says. “An emerald green.”

Hongjoong nods in understanding. They branch off from each other for a few minutes while she goes to look for some laundry detergent, and he comes back with two boxes of bleach, three hair masks, and green hair dye.

It doesn’t come out emerald. It comes out as more of a forest green. Hongjoong pouts at himself in the mirror and runs his evergreen-stained hands through his thoroughly damaged locks.

“I’m sorry,” he says. It’s the first time he ever apologizes for dyeing his hair.

His mother chuckles and puts her hands on is shoulders. “I think it looks great.”

“You think?”

She nods and presses a kiss to the crown of his head. It smells like coconut.

“Any color looks amazing on you, sweetheart.”

🟥

Hongjoong becomes the guitarist for jazz band in high school. He still gets a few hostile stares from his peers now and then, but trombonist and dancer and soccer player Jeong Yunho is there to assure him that everyone is stupid and that his hair is “badass.” He then blows into his trombone at an E flat and some of his spit lands on Hongjoong’s ear, but the redhead can’t bring himself to be _that_ mad (he is only slightly grossed out and quickly wipes Yunho’s spit droplets from his ear).

Jeong Yunho inserts himself into Hongjoong’s life like the cord into his electric guitar, and because everyone likes Yunho, everyone starts to like Hongjoong.

It’s a domino effect, Hongjoong realizes. No, actually, he doesn’t realize; he _knows_. He’s known that since middle school, since his strawberry milk hair catapulted him into a miniature crisis at the age of thirteen. He knows that when one person starts clapping, more people start clapping until there’s an auditorium full of people applauding whoever’s onstage, even if they may not be that good. People will only like the people who are liked by people who are liked. A domino effect.

One person falls, and everyone falls with them.

Hongjoong starts doing magic again. He shows Yunho a few tricks at a sleepover one night, and Yunho watches with wide and intrigued eyes.

“You sure I’m not boring you?” Hongjoong asks him with a smirk and raised eyebrow.

“You couldn’t bore anybody even if you tried,” Yunho replies.

Hongjoong laughs and tells Yunho to pick a card, any card. Yunho picks the king of diamonds.

Cut to Yunho’s wide-eyed, flabbergasted face once Hongjoong picks that mustached man from what he thinks is a shuffled deck. Hongjoong is beaming, his heart racing for whatever reason.

“Dude, how the hell do you do that?” Yunho asks, bewildered.

Hongjoong just shakes his head and inserts the king back into the deck where it belongs.

“A magician never reveals his secrets.”

🟥

Hongjoong picks up magic tricks again but doesn’t show anybody. He doesn’t feel a need to, but he keeps his hair red (unfortunately, the green just did _not_ turn out well and he got his mother’s approval to dye it back to red). He mainly just keeps it as a little esoteric gag between him and Yunho, that is, until he somehow manages to make _more_ friends.

One of these friends is a flutist by the name of Heejin. Her hair is the color of autumn and she just barely reaches Yunho’s chest. Her lips are full and as red as Hongjoong’s hair, and her laugh is just as heavenly as her flute-playing.

When Hongjoong is fifteen, he dyes his hair orange. Heejin smiles so widely that her eyes disappear, and she loves to stroke his hair when her hands are not in his. Even though his hair has grown weary of the chemicals, she kisses him and his hair as if it isn’t the color of her favorite fruit, and Hongjoong couldn’t care less about what his hair has to say to him.

With the domino effect still in play, Hongjoong is barely stared at. Yunho still blows his trombone in his ear, Heejin still plays the flute like she’s its owner, and Hongjoong is _adored._

🟥

It’s a blazing hot day in July when the rain pours down on him and washes the orange from his hair. Yunho is with him, rubbing his shoulder as he sobs.

“What color?” Yunho asks him.

Hongjoong sniffles and looks up. It’s absolutely disgusting outside, cloudy, humid. Giant globs of moisture are already clinging to his skin in his air-conditioned room. The last thing he wants to do is go outside, where it’s even worse, especially with his tear-stained face.

“Red,” Hongjoong says.

Yunho nods. “Of course. I can get it for you, if you want.”

Hongjoong shakes his head and wipes his nose. “No. I know what to get, so I’m getting it.”

Clearing his throat, Hongjoong stands up, a bit shaky on the soles of his feet, and storms out the front door with Yunho right behind him. They walk down to the corner store five minutes away, before the thunder clouds roll in.

“Do you need to bleach it again? It’s already orange… going on blond now, by the looks of it,” Yunho observes as Hongjoong stares at himself in the mirror back home.

“I’m just gonna do this.”

Hongjoong mixes the dye and developer in a bowl and, without any tools, dollops the dye onto his head and massages it in like it’s shampoo. Before, he’d been much more meticulous about making sure each strand gets equal amounts of attention, but now, he really doesn’t care.

“Uh, are you sure it’s gonna come out okay?” Yunho asks skeptically.

“I don’t care,” Hongjoong mutters.

His hair, now stained with red once again, is sticking up in spikes, a giant mess, just like he is. “Man, I’m really sorry,” Yunho says, pity dripping from his voice like the furious sweat from Hongjoong’s pores. “She fucked up real bad, dude. She won’t know what she’s missing.”

Hongjoong scoffs and looks up at his burning forest of a head. _She’s not missing out on much_ , he thinks.

🟥

September is purple, Hongjoong thinks. It’s a lilac to royal purple ombre. Autumn is less of oranges and browns and reds and more of whites and cools to Hongjoong.

And purple is the color he dyes his hair when he meets Choi San in September.

Hongjoong already knew Choi San existed. He’s in band, just like him and Yunho, and he plays tenor sax. He’s also in the school choir, though with how much fry he likes to add to his voice when he’s belting out power ballads, Hongjoong imagines choir isn’t something San is that serious about.

It starts when San asks to try out his guitar. He turns the three knobs up all the way and strums the open strings, causing an unpleasant, distorted chord to burst throughout the band room. San laughs like a maniac, and before Hongjoong even has a chance to react, Yunho blows his trombone in his ear again.

Their laughter reminds Hongjoong of a melody that sounded orange. It makes him smile and tear up, it makes his stomach hurt, and it makes him see a blast of colors beneath his eyelids when he’s doubled over in laughter on the floor. The band director peeks his head in the door to see three rowdy teenagers laughing and a guitar and trombone on the floor. “Detention” is written across all three of their foreheads.

After school, while they’re supposed to be mulling over their mistakes and writing grievance letters apologizing for being young, Hongjoong feels a crumpled up piece of paper the size of a golf ball hit the back of his neck.

 _‘Wanna go out sometime?’_ it reads, signed with a purple heart and the initials C.S. at the bottom. San is behind him, smiling conspicuously.

It’s the first time a boy makes Hongjoong’s heart flutter, like purple butterflies learning the tango, and he says yes.

He keeps San’s note tucked in his pocket and takes it out when he’s at the store, perusing the shelves for purple dye that best matches the color of San’s pen. His mother helps him bleach his hair that night.

“You have a date?” she asks once Hongjoong shows her the note.

“Yeah,” he says, his heart swelling like a blooming petunia.

She chuckles and looks at the note, then back at the purple dye that’s been mixed in the bowl. “Is purple their favorite color?”

Hongjoong shrugs as she starts brushing it on his creasing blond hair. “Maybe.”

“Well, I’m sure it’ll look amazing on you.”

And it does. A striking electric violet, even brighter than the color of San’s pen. They meet at a café, and San’s smile extends ear-to-ear at the sight of Hongjoong’s new hair. “Holy shit! Your hair looks so cool. Purple’s my favorite color, you know.”

Hongjoong laughs and sits, ruffling the crispy field of purple flowers upon his head. “Oh, really? That’s awesome!”

It rains during their date, but it doesn’t matter. They watch the rain pour down on the window panes and talk about their dreams; apparently San has dreams of being a rock star but he also considers himself a “realist” and has accepted the fact that he probably won’t be one. Hongjoong frowns at him.

“I’ll be a rock star when you become a professional magician,” San jokes.

But Hongjoong reads San like a picture book. It’s not a funny joke.

“What do you want to be?” San asks him, steering the conversation away.

Hongjoong shrugs. “I don’t know. A musician, maybe. A producer or composer at least. If those plans fall through, I’ll settle for something that’ll make me want to blow my brains out at thirty years old.”

San laughs and sips his blueberry smoothie, a lighter shade of Hongjoong’s hair, and says, “Well, you certainly have a better chance at fame than me.”

Hongjoong silently wishes San would stop putting himself down, but he doesn’t bring it up for the rest of the date. Instead, Hongjoong whips out his deck of cards and tells San to pick one, any one. San picks the jack of spades. Hongjoong fumbles with the cards a little, his skills rustier than he’s used to, but he still manages to show San’s card after shuffling the deck.

“You’re amazing, you know that?” San says, a rosy blush on his cheeks.

Hongjoong ducks his head in embarrassment, feeling cherries creeping up on his own face. He barely glances up at San’s blueberry smoothie and his lilac sweater that eats his tiny frame alive and thinks, _damn, San must really like purple._

🟥

San kisses Hongjoong in an alleyway, away from all the stares. It’s discrete but not the most romantic place for Hongjoong to have his first kiss. However, he can’t bring himself to care all that much about the putrid odor of garbage when San’s flowery scent and purple aura overpower all the bad in the world. He is worried that he’s messy and that his inexperience is peeking through, but San is smiling when he pulls away.

They part ways outside that alley and Hongjoong walks home alone but not alone, with flowers blooming along his skin and the color purple in his veins.

“You look like you had fun,” his mother comments once he walks in the door. His face hurts from smiling so much.

He gives his mother a half-chuckle but a twinkling smile. He imagines his mother watches him the entire time he bounds up the stairs, and as he stands under the shower and washes away the last of San’s presence from that day, he thinks, _I can see myself falling in love with him._

🟥

On Hongjoong’s birthday, San takes him to the café again. He’s wearing a pastel blue sweater this time, but this one fits him better. It makes him look not so small.

San holds his hand from across the table, unafraid and unperturbed by the stares Hongjoong can feel boring into the back of his head. He caresses the spot beneath Hongjoong’s thumb with his own, tracing petals into his skin and signing his initials on Hongjoong’s heart.

“How long do you think it takes to fall in love with someone?” San asks.

“I don’t know,” Hongjoong answers truthfully. “I’ve never been in love before.”

_But I’m close. I’m so close, I can feel it._

_Does time matter when it comes to falling in love?_

“I think it’s a stupid question that holds less meaning than people think,” San says. “People can love each other in a day, or a month, or a year, or several years. And nobody else can have a say in how long that takes.”

Hongjoong nods and smiles and tightens his hand around San’s. “Well, let me ask you this. How long do you think it takes to fall _out_ of love?”

“A lot longer than it takes to fall into it,” San answers. “Think about it. If you fall down a hole, you hit the bottom easily with no interruptions. But in order to get out, you have to climb, exert what feels like an infinite amount of energy, just to breathe again, to see light again. I’d imagine falling out of love feels a lot like that. If you really loved someone, I’d imagine it’s not easy at all to leave it all behind.”

“You have to pull yourself out of the hole that is love,” Hongjoong says.

San chuckles. “That’s right.”

Hongjoong smiles and glances around. Nobody is looking at them. Nobody is looking at Hongjoong’s unconventionally-colored hair or San’s bright blue sweater, probably because they’re there so much, that all the regulars and baristas know, _those two are so cloyingly in love_ , and as if the domino effect has followed Hongjoong this far, everyone falls into the routine of just not caring.

If only the whole world were like that, Hongjoong thinks.

They walk the charcoal streets until it’s dark, San’s blue arm linked through Hongjoong’s black one. With more of the town’s population littering the streets than in the café, they receive more stares, probably a few grunts of disapproval once those people pass, but Hongjoong walks proudly, and he hopes that San is doing the same.

🟥

San tells Hongjoong he loves him in December. He is fifteen going on sixteen.

He says it back. But in the back of his head is his father’s nagging voice, asking him, _“Son, is this the boy you want to have for the rest of your life?”_

When San kisses him deeply under the soft white light of his bedroom, he replies, _“No, appa. I’m too young.”_

His mother laughs and argues with, _“He has to go through so many lovers before he finds one he will grow his hair out for.”_

Hongjoong chuckles into San’s lips. San does it too, but he has no idea what’s going through his head.

_San, one day, I will break your heart or you will break mine. I think both of us know that, but it will prepare neither of us for the journey we have to take to climb out of that deep, dark hole._

Until then, however, Hongjoong will continue to dye his roots purple.

🟥

It’s a fateful day in February, when school has just started up again and Hongjoong’s hair has faded ever so slightly, that he meets Park Seonghwa.

Seonghwa has just moved from a province Hongjoong has never even _heard_ of. He has bushy eyebrows and wears his uniform the wrong way, but nobody comments on it. Hongjoong is sure that once somebody says some snide remark about his crooked tie or unfixed collar, the whole school will start speaking insidious words about Seonghwa that will only fester and grow into uncontrollable rumors that will destroy his social life.

As a preventative measure, Hongjoong and Yunho approach the new kid at lunch. He has his shoulders hunched inward and head down until they sit down directly across from him with their elbows on the table and their chins on their hands. They smirk at him conspicuously; Yunho even raises his eyebrows somewhat suggestively.

“Uh…”

“We’re your new best friends,” Yunho says before Seonghwa can protest.

Seonghwa blinks at them, dead in the face, before he cracks the tiniest of boxy smiles. “Okay.”

“Kim Hongjoong. Jeong Yunho,” Yunho says, pointing to Hongjoong, then himself. “Can you tell he likes grapes?”

Hongjoong’s face twists in confusion, his instinctive reaction being to smack Yunho’s arm. “I’m kidding, kidding. Though… do you actually like grapes, Hongjoong-ah?” Yunho asks him.

“I do,” Hongjoong says. “Grapes are great.”

“But in actuality, he’s just whipped for his boyfriend, whose favorite color is purple.”

“Thanks for outing me, asshole,” Hongjoong says with rolled eyes.

“Look, Seonghwa-ssi,” Yunho says, pointing at the new kid accusingly, “if you’re homophobic or think two boys kissing is gross, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

Seonghwa blinks again, his wide, catlike eyes disappearing for a split second. Hongjoong thinks they’re pretty. “I don’t think you have to worry about that,” he says, clearly amused.

Hongjoong and Yunho exchange a very brief glance before shrugging. “I’m pretty gay myself,” Seonghwa clarifies.

“Nice!” Yunho almost exclaims, reaching across the table to high five their new friend.

Seonghwa smiles wide, his eyebrows creasing making it look like he’s only slightly in pain, but even in pain, at least he has two new friends to keep him sheltered from the enormous dominos just waiting to topple over.

They introduce him to the band room and all of its wondrous instruments, where they always meet up for lunch that isn’t really lunch, just a bunch of teenagers pressing keys and strings they shouldn’t. San is already there, polishing up his saxophone. “Hey, what took you assholes so long?”

“Meet our new friend, and in turn, your new friend,” Yunho says, motioning towards Seonghwa. “Say your name.”

Seonghwa gives him a questioning glance before saying, “Park Seonghwa.”

“Oh, yeah! You’re the new person everyone’s talking about.”

“Everyone’s talking about me?” Seonghwa sounds panicked, almost.

“Well, just that there’s a new person, nothing bad!” San says in a way that’s supposed to comfort. But how could he be comforted in such a new territory, Hongjoong wonders, when it’s all familiar faces and brand new colors? He had to adjust to the unfamiliarity of being the kid with the bright red hair. Seonghwa has to adjust to the unfamiliarity of being the kid whose name nobody knows because they don’t want to bother to learn it.

Saying that their peers aren’t saying anything “bad” is like saying “what you don’t know can’t hurt you.”

Deep down, Seonghwa probably knows that his name is being passed around like a note in class. Nobody bothers to read it, but it sure makes for good gossip.

Hongjoong wants to protect Seonghwa from potential rumors that may sprout just because he comes from the middle of nowhere.

And it will hurt. But Hongjoong keeps _that_ knowledge locked away because that may very well be the only thing Seonghwa doesn’t have to know, because he probably already does.

People talk.

“Do you play any instruments?” San asks Seonghwa.

“Uh… no. I’m kind of boring, honestly.”

“Oh, please, spare the self deprecation! Tell us what you like to do, Seonghwa-ssi,” Yunho says with a warm, inviting smile as he hoists himself up onto the piano, a criminal offense in the realm of band.

“Um, I like reading. And… math.”

“Two polar opposites. Love it.” Yunho nods vigorously, motioning for Seonghwa to continue.

“I like going for runs sometimes. And taking pictures.”

“Maybe you could join the yearbook club,” San suggests.

Seonghwa shrugs, face uncertain. Hongjoong wishes he could pour a cocktail of certainty and confidence into the boy’s mouth and have him swallow it, digest it and make it a part of him, because there is so much _potential_ in this boy, and Hongjoong can’t exactly put his finger on why.

_Please, wear your smile more. Why do I feel like you always take it off at the end of a hard day? Are all of your days hard?_

“Maybe,” Seonghwa says, a mere echo of San’s words.

Hongjoong doesn’t play anything on his guitar. Yunho doesn’t blast discordant trombone through anyone’s eardrums, and San tucks his saxophone away neatly in its case. Instead, they talk to Seonghwa, no longer the new kid in their eyes. They learn that Seonghwa learned to ride a bicycle at ten years old, he loves strawberries (and anything strawberry-flavored), and that he worries a lot.

When asked what he worries about, he answers with, “Everything.”

Hongjoong exchanges glances with his friends, excluding Seonghwa, who’s turned his head away to look out the window. It’s cloudy and the sky looks like it could cry at any moment’s notice.

“I hope that one day you learn to be anxious about things that actually matter,” Yunho says.

“That’s—”

“Before you say what you’re about to say, dearest Sannie, it is impossible not to feel anxious. You know how boring life would be if everyone had no worries all the time? Life would be a shitshow and everyone would be miserable. You’re _supposed_ to worry about things. You’re _supposed_ to be upset about. You don’t want to be a fucking happy-go-lucky robot all the time, you know?”

San stares at him. “I was going to say ‘easier said than done.’”

“Oh.” Yunho’s face deflates. “Well, yeah, that too.”

Seonghwa bursts out laughing, his eyebrows creasing once more. Is he laughing or crying? Both? Hongjoong watches with a smile, because Seonghwa’s laugh is extraordinary, his facial expression while doing so is so unique, and seeing the new kid who was trying to shroud himself inside the mass of mundane faces laughing with students who have been here for _years_ makes Hongjoong feel red.

He kind of misses his red hair. The purple is fading; maybe he should dye it back soon.

🟥

As it turns out, Seonghwa’s house is just two minutes down the road from Hongjoong’s.

Hongjoong visits Seonghwa’s house first, when the walls are still mostly blank and only the necessary pieces of furniture have been set into place. His family is still in the process of painting the yellow walls of the living room a cream color instead.

“Sorry it smells like paint,” Seonghwa says as they journey up the stairs.

“It’s worth the redecoration, honestly. Those mustard yellow walls just do _not_ look right.”

Seonghwa laughs and guides Hongjoong to his bedroom—paper white walls and dark hardwood floors. It’s so _bland_ , Hongjoong thinks, and before he can think more, Seonghwa says, “I know, it’s super unfinished. I’ll get around to it eventually.”

“So this is a _new_ new house, huh?”

“Yup.”

Right, Hongjoong vaguely remembers walking and driving by the construction site for this house. He just never paid that much attention.

“How do you feel?” Hongjoong asks. “Being in a different place?”

“It’s a lot different,” Seonghwa says. “I grew up in what was basically a cottage. Really small, in the middle of nowhere. Hell, I was homeschooled until I moved here.”

Hongjoong’s eyes widen. “Oh, shit. That’s… it must have been so terrifying, walking through the school doors for the first time.”

Seonghwa nods, wearing a crestfallen mask. “It was the most terrifying thing I’ve experienced so far. Which is why I’m grateful for you and Yunho and San. Thank you… for making me feel like I wasn’t a complete anomaly.”

“And what’s wrong with being an anomaly? Have you _seen_ my hair?” Hongjoong jokes, pointing at his lilac-colored hair.

“I suppose you’re right,” Seonghwa says, his upside-down crescent moon flipping right-side up.

“Really, Seonghwa, it’s our pleasure. I think… well, you see, I wasn’t in your exact shoes. I grew up with the people you see at school. They know me because I dye my hair and do stupid magic tricks—”

“You do magic tricks?”

“Yes, but that’s not the point. They know my name because I’m the one with the bright red hair who walks around with a deck of cards in his pocket because I want to show off. I’ve had tiny balls of paper thrown at me, I’ve had my name whispered in a not-so-friendly fashion, and I know what it’s like to be the anomaly, through and through.”

Seonghwa looks at him curiously. “So, Seonghwa-ssi, I ask you this. What is so _bad_ about being the anomaly? What’s so fun about making yourself fit in with the masses?” Hongjoong continues before Seonghwa can ask the question visibly brewing in his head.

“Um… I don’t know, Hongjoong.” Seonghwa chuckles, a lighthearted ripple in the overarching span of his worries. “I guess… it’s just easier to fit in. I wish I had the confidence you have.”

“Easier to fit in to please the general population, yes. But will it make it any easier on yourself if you look in the mirror and still hate what you see?”

The words don’t feel right coming out of Hongjoong’s mouth. As if a million microscopic pebbles dig into the tender muscle, he nearly stutters.

Still, Seonghwa smiles at him, just a slight curve of his mouth. “Is that why you dye your hair so much? To be the anomaly?”

Hongjoong puts on his smile mask and sighs.

“No. It just happened to make me one.”

🟥

Hongjoong and San break up in April, not because they were tired of each other or anything. The longstanding, unspoken words of “we’re too young and stupid to know what we really want” had come to life, and it was only a matter of time.

They still meet in the band room during lunch. Seonghwa does his math homework, Yunho plays his trombone, San practices his splits, and Hongjoong watches.

He dyes his hair back to red in May and thinks that perhaps San was wrong.

🟥

“I think red hair suits you the best,” Seonghwa says to Hongjoong one night. They’re at Seonghwa’s house. His room has finally been painted a slightly unsaturated blue, and a tapestry of the stars hangs on the wall behind his bed, as if he is truly _sleeping under the stars._

It’s starting to look a lot more like home, and Hongjoong hopes it _feels_ that way for the not-so-new-anymore boy.

“It’s basically my default hair color,” Hongjoong tells him. “It’s been that way since I was thirteen, and will probably stay like that for a while.”

Seonghwa hums in response and reclines back against his pillows, hands behind his head. “How has your hair not fallen out?” he asks half-jokingly.

“Sheer willpower.” Hongjoong curls his fingers into a fist and sneers before breaking into a fit of giggles instead. He reaches up to feel the wiry locks. “Crispy.”

Seonghwa giggles with him at the strange choice of adjective.

“Do you like your hair?” Seonghwa asks.

“Which color?”

“Any of them.”

Hongjoong ponders the question for several seconds before shrugging. His mother would probably admonish him, tell him that _every color looks amazing on you_. But it’s not the _color_ , Hongjoong thinks. It’s _him._

It’s the person Hongjoong sees when he looks into the glass. It’s the need to bleach the roots once they start to peek through his scalp. It’s the itching feeling he gets whenever he wants to unlearn someone’s favorite color, or when it doesn’t feel right to see a color that isn’t red.

_When you look in the mirror, do you like what you see?_

“I’m indifferent,” Hongjoong answers, and he is deeply unsatisfied with it.

Seonghwa lets out a noise.

“Well, I hope that answer changes to yes one day.”

🟥

The next time Hongjoong colors his hair (keyword: colors), he’s sixteen, it’s October, and Yunho has just spray-colored his hair yellow for the fuck of it. With his hair now looking the color of cartoon urine, Hongjoong decides he won’t let Yunho go through the humiliation of it alone.

So, Hongjoong sprays multiple layers of mustard upon his ketchup hair and walks around the school like he’s wearing a lemon helmet.

“I think I’m good,” Seonghwa says with a laugh when Hongjoong holds the spray can out to him. “I don’t think I’m cut out to be an anomaly just yet.”

“Suit yourself,” Hongjoong replies, spraying on a thin layer to conceal the red that’s starting to poke through.

Hongjoong and Yunho march the halls like they own the place, yellow crowns atop their heads. Yunho still talks to his friends from other cliques, San still talks to them when they meet in the band room at lunch, and while word of the insane walking corn cobs is probably being spread through the school like wildfire, Hongjoong couldn’t care less.

The yellow washes out that evening when he’s showering. His hair feels absolutely disgusting, but he’s smiling when he falls asleep.

“Love you, bro. I’d go through heaven and hell for you, you know that?” Yunho had told him earlier that day.

_I am so endlessly grateful for you. You are just like the cord from my guitar to the amp. You give me a voice, and you play louder than the voice in my head. You make me feel like being the anomaly isn’t a bad thing. I don’t know where I’d be without you and your obnoxious trombone playing and your warm presence._

“Love you too,” Hongjoong had said back.

🟥

Hongjoong gets drunk for the first time when he’s seventeen. It’s New Years Day, a half hour after midnight and they’re in Yunho’s basement, just the four of them. They’re drunk off of cheap champagne and one bottle of soju they share among themselves. However, even with an equal amount of liquor in their systems, Yunho is fine, San is happy, and Hongjoong and Seonghwa are in another dimension.

“So,” Seonghwa begins, followed by a hiccup, “why _do_ you dye your hair so much, Hongjoong?”

San and Yunho look to the redhead expectantly. “Yeah, maybe your New Years resolution should be to give your hair a break,” Yunho jokes, ruffling the dead strands of hair upon Hongjoong’s head.

“Not a chance,” Hongjoong says in pout. “I like my hair the way it is, thank you very much. If red could be my natural hair color, I would _so_ love that.”

“Is red your favorite color?” Seonghwa asks.

With bubbles in his brain, Hongjoong just laughs and drinks from his red plastic cup, swallowing down the answer. They forget the question in a matter of seconds, and the word ‘no’ sits pleasantly in Hongjoong’s stomach like alphabet soup.

🟥

After the Lemon Hair Incident, Hongjoong’s mother starts encouraging him to use temporary hairspray instead of bleaching and dyeing constantly. He appreciates it, as he understands it’s coming from a place of love and genuine concern for his hair, and if he’s being honest, it’s a lot less of a hassle.

However, he still bleaches and dyes the roots red when they grow in.

His next hair color is mint green for Song Mingi, a boy from a neighboring school who towers over everyone just like Yunho and has the charisma of Hollywood personified. His favorite ice cream flavor is mint chocolate and he likes wearing pastel sweaters just like San.

They meet when Yunho introduces them to each other in March. Hongjoong is seventeen, and he hasn’t done magic tricks in so long. They become official in April.

“Do you love him?” Seonghwa asks Hongjoong under some cerulean blue fairy lights.

His entire face is blue, like a cosmic smurf. Hongjoong laughs. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

Seonghwa nods. “I’m surprised you didn’t say yes.”

Hongjoong raises an eyebrow at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He watches Seonghwa’s signature half-crescent smirk appear under the endless blue. “That’s why you dye your hair, isn’t it?”

Hongjoong looks at him, momentarily confused, because how the hell is he supposed to know what love feels like when he hasn’t—

Felt it yet?

What the hell does love even _feel_ like?

“Fuck,” Hongjoong mumbles.

Seonghwa chuckles as the mysterious revelation skyrockets into the air. Hongjoong shivers.

“It’s a cute gesture, really,” Seonghwa says.

“I didn’t… I don’t…” Hongjoong fumbles with his brain; the cord from his head to his mouth is malfunctioning, apparently, while the word ‘love’ is being tossed around, clattering against his skull. _What the heck is love?_

“So you do? You love Mingi?”

Hongjoong frowns, his red hair still red, and says, “I don’t know.”

The sheets rustle when Seonghwa shrugs. “I don’t blame you. I mean, you’re seventeen. Do teenagers really know what love is?”

Hongjoong remembers a question of San’s. _How long does it take to fall in and out of love?_ has now become _at what age is it okay for someone to fall in love, or even know what love feels like?_

Perhaps he’s been a fool for a long, long time. His past “lovers” have come and gone, melted away like strawberry ice cream or orange creamsicles, fallen off flowers and drifted away into the wind. And yet, he always goes back to red.

His mother is laughing at him, but not in a condescending way. She hugs him from behind and tells him, _“Hongjoong-ah, when you love someone, when you_ truly _love someone, I bet you would grow your hair out for them.”_

Hongjoong suppresses the urge to laugh. He responds to Seonghwa, “I’m sure someone does.”

🟥

They’re in Hongjoong’s basement. It smells like… well, a basement, but it’s got pretty decent acoustics and it’s the only space where Hongjoong’s guitar setup can fit. He’s sitting on a stool, his acoustic-electric plugged in to the biggest amp he owns, fiddling with a scale up and down the frets. Seonghwa is on the dusty old sofa, obsolete and well-worn, but according to the black-haired boy, it gives him some strange sense of nostalgia even though it was never his.

He’s picking at his fingernails and watching Hongjoong beneath his bangs. Hongjoong occasionally glances up, and each time, Seonghwa is staring at him.

“What?” Hongjoong says with a tiny chuckle after the sixth time he catches Seonghwa looking at him.

“You’re really good,” Seonghwa compliments, his voice small. It’s a habit, perhaps intrinsic, that he still hasn’t overcome. He still hides behind his jet black hair, still talks as if he’s the new kid even though he’s not. He still ducks his head when people walk past him and apologizes if he so much as clears his throat next to somebody. “How long have you been playing?”

“Oh, uh, since I was ten or eleven, maybe. I’m self-taught.”

“You’re amazing.” Seonghwa’s mouth twitches in a quarter smile, like he’s hiding something. Hongjoong knows because he’s done it before.

“Thank you,” Hongjoong replies because if he said what he really thought, he wouldn’t hear the end of it from the mother figure in his head.

“Is music something you want to do in the future?”

Hongjoong nods. “Yeah. It’s the one thing I really enjoy.”

“You can do it,” Seonghwa says firmly, ten times the conviction Hongjoong has ever had towards himself. “Seriously. But if you become famous one day, you better write a song about me and how I encouraged you to chase your dreams on this very day.”

Hongjoong’s smile appears and grows gradually, from the curve of his lips to the slow reveal of his gums. He smiles wide, laughs, and says, “Of course I will. What’s today’s date?”

“Um… May tenth.”

“You have my word, Park Seonghwa.”

🟥

Hongjoong is spraying mint green color into his hair half an hour before he’s supposed to leave for school when he starts to wonder, _why am I doing this if he’s not even around to see it?_

And Mingi _has_ seen it before. He’s seen Hongjoong’s magic tricks and the way he sometimes talks bad about himself. He calls Hongjoong and his hair cute and says that he’s the most handsome guy he’s ever met, but the words fly in one ear and out the other.

Hongjoong is pretty sure words coming from someone he loves would mean something. That the words would go in one ear, travel down past the nasal cavities, down his esophagus, and branch out from his heart to the rest of his body via the blood in his arteries and veins. They would stick with him, perhaps _change_ him, but for some reason, Mingi’s words hold none of those things. They do nothing, and Hongjoong doesn’t remember them like he does May tenth.

He goes to school with wet hair that day, and breaks up with Mingi in June.

🟥

Hongjoong gets a job at a record shop twenty minutes away from his house. He works there for a few hours after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays and on weekends, and before he knows it, he’s saving up. For what, he’s not entirely sure. He’ll figure it out eventually.

Yunho and San visit him, mainly to entertain him since it’s dead half the time (Hongjoong honestly doesn’t understand how this place is still _running_ ). The one time Seonghwa comes in, it’s almost dusk and he’s holding a skateboard.

“You skate?” Hongjoong asks him, half-entertained.

“Badly. An old friend of mine taught me,” Seonghwa tells him. “I just like alternative methods of moving. Feels good, standing still and still moving.”

“I’m sure. Know any tricks?”

“Hell no,” Seonghwa says with a scoff. “And no, I won’t even try. I value my ass.”

“What ass?”

Seonghwa gives him the most obvious eye roll.

After the shop closes, Seonghwa takes Hongjoong on the detour route back home, cutting through a massive park with winding walkways. It’s pleasantly cool for a summer evening, and Hongjoong breathes in the fresh air as the sound of wheels clacking along dips in the pathways fill his ear drums.

“What do you want to do, Seonghwa?”

“Uh, I don’t know. We can hang out at my place if you want—”

“No, I mean, what do you want to _do_?”

Seonghwa’s board slows, and he doesn’t do anything to accelerate again. He stands unmoving but still moves as silence hangs between them.

After maybe a minute, Seonghwa’s board comes to a halt entirely. He takes one foot off of it and kicks it upward, grabbing it. “I don’t know,” he says, tucking the board under his arm. “I should probably figure that out soon.”

“You don’t have to. You still have time.”

“I guess.”

“I don’t think I’m going to college,” Hongjoong confesses, the words like a boulder off his chest. “I don’t think I’m cut out for it.”

“Why’s that?”

“I don’t want to be stuck anymore. I don’t want to surround myself with people who see me as the guy who dyes his hair wacky colors and does magic tricks. I want people to see me for _me_ , the things that I actually do and care about and think about… I want to be more than just the illusion of me. I want to _mean_ something.”

Hongjoong is breathless by the time his unspoken words, unsaid even to Yunho, spill from his mouth. His face is hot and his eyes feel moist.

Seonghwa stares at him, some sort of confusion on his face. He even tilts his head slightly. “Hongjoong, you _do_ mean something. You mean a lot, actually. To me, to Yunho and San. You mean _so much_ , Hongjoong.”

Hongjoong has the audacity to let out a halfhearted laugh, but when they get back to Seonghwa’s basement, he cries for the first time in what feels like (and probably has been) years.

Seonghwa slings his arm around his quivering shoulders. Hongjoong thinks he must look pathetic; the kid who goes around smirking and showing off his magic tricks, the one who dyes his hair and doesn’t care, _crying_? Kim Hongjoong doesn’t cry. He laughs in the faces of people who throw paper at him and sprays his hair yellow because his best friend did. He plays guitar and didn’t win the talent show but still carried himself well, still continued to play and didn’t let his loss get him down.

Kim Hongjoong is _strong._

“I just… want people to know who I really am,” he whispers.

”And who are you, Hongjoong?” Seonghwa asks him, the dreaded question that Hongjoong has always asked himself but never knew the answer to.

The question of _at what age is it okay for someone to fall in love, or even know what love feels like?_ has now become _at what age should I know who I am?_

“I don’t know.”

Because he doesn’t. He doesn’t know.

Is he strong? Is he really, truly, honest to god strong? Or is it just another one of his tricks?

He’s kept up the charade for so long. He’s _tired._

“That’s okay,” Seonghwa says, fingers tightening around his shoulder. “It’s okay to not know who you are or want to be.”

“How long will it be until I know?” Hongjoong thinks out loud.

“I don’t know. I feel like once you know, you’ll feel it. You’ll wake up one day and feel lighter, feel enlightened. Like most, if not all of your worries have been erased from existence. You’ll look at everything around you in a different light, in a different color, and you’ll feel… happy. I think.”

“Is that the meaning of happiness? Knowing who you are?”

“Part of it,” Seonghwa says with a chuckle. “But what do I know? I’m seventeen.”

Hongjoong sniffles and thinks, _Stop using your age as a means of downplaying your wisdom._

“You are quite extraordinary for a seventeen-year-old, Park Seonghwa,” he says.

“Growing up in butt-fuck nowhere gives you a lot of time to think,” Seonghwa jests, jostling Hongjoong slightly. “I don’t exactly know who I am, and I know I don’t talk a lot. But I’ve actually got quite a lot going on up here.” He taps his index finger against his temple, smirking.

Hongjoong reaches up and tussles his hair. It’s soft, and nothing like his own. “Looks like we have something in common.”

🟥

Hongjoong learns Seonghwa’s favorite color on his birthday. They’re in Yunho’s basement sharing two bottles of soju and a giant chocolate cake.

“Royal blue,” Seonghwa says.

“Ah, how fancy,” Yunho drawls, smirking.

“Royal blue for His Highness, Prince Park Seonghwa,” San jokes, followed by an obnoxious, drunken cackle.

“Prince Seonghwa,” Hongjoong echoes, much more calmly, his mouth struggling to form a smile amidst the haze, but he manages, because it’s Seonghwa. ‘Prince’ rolls off the tongue so easily.

_Prince Seonghwa. Prince Seonghwa._

Hongjoong laughs in and outside of his brain. The new moniker sounds like the smoothest harmonies and the catchiest jingles.

He could have assumed Seonghwa’s favorite color was some shade of blue judging by the amount of it in his bedroom. Blue walls, blue fairy lights, the night sky tapestry behind his bed. Blue through and through is Seonghwa’s favorite color.

“I don’t understand why blue is associated with sadness,” Seonghwa says from the sofa (out of the blue). “It’s a beautiful color.”

“All colors are beautiful.” Hongjoong’s eyelids droop as he crawls over to Seonghwa. He rests his head on the boy’s knee. “Any color can be sad, just as any color can be happy.” Mindlessly, he traces shapes into Seonghwa’s shoe—a pair of royal blue Converse with squiggly doodles drawn on the white borders. “Think that can be said about people too.”

🟥

It’s December twenty-ninth when Seonghwa breaks Hongjoong’s heart.

“I just wish I could look at myself and see someone worth loving,” the boy says. He speaks with tremors and his hands are clutched against his chest.

Hongjoong curls his hand around Seonghwa’s and tells him, “Seonghwa, I could have you look in a million mirrors of all shapes and sizes, and you would still be exactly that.”

Snow flurries and melancholy wind play their sad song outside Seonghwa’s window. It’s blue all around them.

“I wish you were your favorite color, Seonghwa.”

Seonghwa sniffles, takes a few seconds before lifting his head and finally facing Hongjoong with flushed cheeks and bloodshot eyes.

“I wish you were yours too, Hongjoong.”

🟥

“What even _is_ your favorite color, Hong?”

Hongjoong takes a deep breath. Perhaps it’s about time someone knew.

“Black.”

_With how often you dye your hair, I’m surprised._

Seonghwa doesn’t say that, though.

🟥

“Black is my natural hair color. It’s so boring though. A lot of people have black hair.”

“But it’s your favorite color.”

“Doesn’t mean I want to see it every time I look in the mirror.”

Seonghwa sighs at him. “I think you want to stand out a little _too_ much, Hongjoong. Didn’t you say you want people to know who you are?”

🟥

A year zips past Hongjoong in what feels like five seconds. January through December, Hongjoong’s eighteenth year, he works, eats, sleeps. He goes to school, plays guitar, sees Yunho, San, and Seonghwa on basically a daily basis. He continues to bleach his roots and dye them over with red.

On May tenth, Hongjoong stayed up from one in the morning to two in the afternoon. He wrote a poem on a piece of college-ruled paper and titled it ‘Prince.’

It sits in the desk drawer in his bedroom, folded in half. On December thirty-first, Hongjoong is with Seonghwa because Yunho and San are at a _party_ party, surrounding themselves with strangers and bad decisions. He wants no part of that.

His parents buy them a bottle of champagne and leave them to attend their own little get together at a coworker’s place or something. They split it in half, pour the gold liquid into jars and wait for the countdown.

“Another year,” Seonghwa says.

“It’s our last year of high school,” Hongjoong responds.

Seonghwa lets out a long sigh. “Still remember the day you and Yunho barged into my personal space and forced me to be friends with you.”

“Hey! The last time you talked about that, you said you were grateful.”

“And I still am,” Seonghwa quips with a wink. “Never said I wasn’t.”

It’s 11:56 pm. Hongjoong’s heart feels heavy yet light at the same time.

“What?” Seonghwa asks suddenly.

“What what?” Hongjoong blinks rapidly, oddly breathless.

“You were looking at me.”

Was he?

“Oh. Sorry.”

Seonghwa chuckles, and it only adds to the fire in Hongjoong’s chest. “It’s okay. You were looking at me in a nice way, which is… nice.”

“A nice way is nice. Got it.”

“It’s better than the way I look at myself,” Seonghwa says.

The silence is so thick, Hongjoong could hear a pin drop. He’s looking at Seonghwa, whose jet black hair falls just above his eyes, past his eyebrows. He wants to reach over and part his bangs, to _look_ at him, just so he can figure out _why_ this boy doesn’t like what he sees.

Hongjoong blinks, and with each millisecond of blindness, he imagines Seonghwa with all the hair colors he can possibly imagine and thinks, _this boy would still look so beautiful._

“I don’t understand,” Hongjoong says, “how someone like you could hate yourself so much.”

Seonghwa looks at him with a gasp hidden beneath his brown eyes, mouth parted slightly. He looks like he could cry.

“I wonder the exact same thing about you.”

The words he speaks are not what Hongjoong imagined.

They look at each other, two reflections of people who can’t seem to see themselves the way others see them, but as Hongjoong looks into Seonghwa’s eyes, he realizes that maybe it doesn’t matter all that much.

Seonghwa is the only thing he can see in this moment.

🟥

Hongjoong is nineteen when he kisses Seonghwa for the first time. It’s January first, 12:09 am, and there are tears staining his cheeks.

🟥

_Who am I?_

Hongjoong folds the last piece of foil over his hair. His fingers are cramping up, cold from being out for so long. His parents ignore the fumes that are probably wafting all the way downstairs. He stares at himself in the mirror, expression entirely neutral.

_Who am I? Who am I?_

If he were to slap a beanie or a cap or a crown over his head, his hair would still be his hair, no matter the color. His name would still be Kim Hongjoong, he would still play the guitar, he would still know how to do magic tricks, he would still have bigger than average teeth and his eyes would be the same shape.

He could change the outside all he wants, but nothing can erase what’s built into him. No amount of bleach could wash away the colors that are engrained within.

🟥

It’s February. It’s snowing, the pathways are coated with a thin layer of those pesky little flakes, and Hongjoong’s hair is unmistakably blue under the yellowish light of the streetlamp above him.

Seonghwa watches the boy just _standing_ there, smiling up at the sky. It’s littered with stars, just like the tapestry behind his bed.

“Oh, hey.” Hongjoong turns to him and smiles. There are stars even in his irises.

“H-hey.”

“Like my new hair? I'm pretty sure it’s your favorite color.”

🟥

**II. Blue**

Seonghwa doesn’t understand how Hongjoong could spend so much time with someone as mediocre as him. Not when Hongjoong is talented and confident and—

Sometimes, Seonghwa has to remind himself that Hongjoong isn’t all what he appears to be, though. He finds it so strange and sort of confusing, how Hongjoong carries himself so well but still doesn’t like what he sees.

All while asking himself, _who am I?_

It makes Seonghwa wonder.

If Hongjoong doesn’t know who he is, than what does that make _him_?

Seonghwa doesn’t come from money or talent or anything really. He comes from a small town and _one_ friend that he had to leave behind. He doesn’t have any talent in his fingertips, doesn’t have anything particularly profound to say or do. He’s just floating along, waiting for something to sweep him off his feet and get him going.

It’s his last year of high school. He needs to figure shit out.

_But what am I even supposed to be figuring out? I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to figure out._

He sighs and groans, pressing his fingers into his eyes. His cranium feels like it couldn’t be more overloaded, and he slams his notes shut.

He’ll deal with it in the morning.

🟦

“Why do you not like yourself, Seonghwa? There’s so much to like about you.”

“I just don’t think I’m special.”

“What makes one special?”

Hongjoong looks at him with those gums, that smile crafted in the sky, and reaches his hand behind his head to stroke Seonghwa’s untouched locks.

“If everyone was special, the world would be so boring, just like it would be if everyone was normal,” Hongjoong tells him. “So just be _you_ , and nothing else.”

And somehow, the question of _who am I?_ does not surface.

🟦

Hongjoong tells Seonghwa he loves him in the fall.

“You know… I’ve never felt this way about anyone. I’ve dyed my hair for people that I’ve loved, or thought I loved, because all along, I didn’t know what love is. But I think I love you, Seonghwa.”

Even with ‘I think’ attached to it, Seonghwa can still feel it. He can almost see the admiration in Hongjoong’s eyes, how his face brightens when he looks at him, and Seonghwa wonders, _what’s stopping me from looking at myself like that?_

“I think I love you too, Hongjoong.”

Seonghwa is nineteen. He barely knows anything. But he knows that this feels like something, and that something may very well be love.

🟦

Hongjoong is looking at Seonghwa’s exam results with his jaw dropped to the floor.

“How the _fuck_ did you do this good? God, I could kiss you!”

And he does, actually. He tackles Seonghwa onto the bed and peppers his face with kisses. “You’re so fucking smart, Seonghwa. But like, we all knew that.”

Seonghwa chuckles and gently pushes Hongjoong off of him, though he doesn’t really want to. “How did you do?” he asks.

“Decent. But I told you, I’m not going to college.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

Hongjoong sighs and throws his legs off the end of his bed. “I’m going to do the impossible. I’m gonna be a musician.”

“You can do it,” Seonghwa says almost immediately. “You can do it, Hongjoong. I know you can.”

Hongjoong’s smile grows tenfold. “I think I can, too. But what about you? What are you going to do?”

The year hasn’t been easy, but it hasn’t been tough either. Even with exams kicking everyone’s asses, Seonghwa has somehow managed to stay relatively levelheaded, even applying to a multitude of universities in and out of the country.

“Go to college. I don’t know what for yet, though.”

“Do something you _want_ to do,” Hongjoong says with a firm nod. “Don’t drift anymore, my prince.”

Seonghwa makes a face at his boyfriend. “Prince?”

“Prince. My dear Prince Seonghwa.” Hongjoong snickers and tackles him to the bed again, kissing him deeply. “Royal blue for His Royal Highness.”

🟦

Seonghwa has no choice but to watch as Hongjoong thrives.

In Hongjoong’s eyes, perhaps he’s thriving too. He’s made it into one of the top schools in the country, still undecided, but just making it in is enough to stir up _some_ confidence in him.

“You’re getting there, my prince,” Hongjoong says. They’re in Seonghwa’s bedroom, swaying in each other’s arms to some slow song playing in the background, reminding Seonghwa of a scene they’d see in a movie. “And I am so proud of you.”

“I’m proud of you too, you know.” Seonghwa pulls away to look at his boyfriend and the hair that blends in with the rest of his room. Blue upon blue upon blue, Seonghwa is mesmerized, surrounded by his favorite color.

“You are incredible, Park Seonghwa,” Hongjoong murmurs, resting his forehead against his. “And I am so glad to have met you.”

Somewhere, a single drop of water drips into a pool, the one spark it takes for the waves to ripple, to sing, to spread through his bones and tell him, _I love you_ , in a voice that isn’t quite his own but isn’t quite Hongjoong’s either.

_You are more than just the new kid who walked through those halls with bangs so long they covered your eyes. You are more than the place you came from. You are more than what you see yourself as in the mirror, you don’t need to be special._

_You just need to be you, my prince. Whoever you may be._

🟦

Hongjoong lands his first gig on the thirtieth of January. Seonghwa has since graduated and is now en route to start school in March.

It’s at a fairly popular bar downtown, and it also happens to be the first bar they step foot in.

As jittery as the nerves make them both, as soon as Hongjoong steps on that stage and trickles tunes from his guitar, it’s crystal clear.

This man is where he is meant to be.

Though many of the patrons may not be paying much attention, Seonghwa watches with every atom in his being as his boyfriend does what he’s meant to do.

 _This_ is who he is. Seonghwa can’t help but think that.

He is the man with black hair beneath blue who sings and plays guitar. Who speaks from the heart and knows all too well what being the anomaly feels like while still searching for who he is. He is confident yet not, caring and kind, and Seonghwa is in love with him.

People applaud him and he shines brighter than the spotlight that’s illuminates his face. Seonghwa swears there are tears in his eyes.

🟦

As Seonghwa starts school, Hongjoong starts independent work. While still employed at the record shop, he purchases equipment for his own little makeshift recording setup with the money he saved during high school. When Seonghwa sees it all, his brain hurts.

“I’m gonna try to produce my own EP,” Hongjoong says. “Hopefully, if I keep at it and people notice my stuff…”

He doesn’t even need to finish. Seonghwa grabs him by the waist and spins him around until he lands square in his arms.

“Remember May tenth, alright?”

“Alright.”

(Little does Seonghwa know.)

🟦

They talk less.

Seonghwa has to remind himself that they’re both busy. They both have their own schedules. Hongjoong is working his ass off for the recognition he deserves, and Seonghwa has a shit ton of assignments and homework and essays to type up.

College is somehow easier and harder than high school, but nothing could have prepared Seonghwa for the feeling of drifting _away_.

He’s drifted. He’s floated along through high school, let the tide take him through it all. Hongjoong and Yunho and San were there.

But now, he’s entered an entirely new world, where he finds himself sheltered more than ever.

And he feels as if he’s floating away from Hongjoong and everything he’s built with him.

It’s a whole lot of “I’m sorry, I was busy”’s and “I’ll call you later, okay?”’s. And Seonghwa must remind himself, it’s for the best.

_We’re trying find out who we are. Maybe we need to spend some time apart._

🟦

Somehow, Seonghwa finds himself in a vacuum, a seemingly endless void, where he’ll feel everything and nothing at all at random points in time.

Hongjoong’s first EP is out on various streaming services, but for some reason, Seonghwa can’t find it in him to listen to it.

Come to think of it, he hasn’t spoken to Hongjoong in quite some time. He spends many of his hours with his phone in his hand, eyebrows creased and thumb hovering over the keyboard, or on the rare occasions, the call button.

He never does. Because he thinks, _Hongjoong is busy, he’s doing important things, and he doesn’t have to make time for me._

🟦

They never officially “break up,” but they don’t need to. Seonghwa already feels it; the thread has been cut, and the aches have begun.

On May tenth, Seonghwa is cramming for exams a month early, and Hongjoong is probably somewhere playing his guitar, singing his heart out, and thriving.

Prince Seonghwa. What a joke.

🟦

It’s August. Seonghwa hasn’t seen or spoken to Hongjoong in months.

He’s at home for a break when there’s a knock on the front door and a very chirpy-looking Yunho standing on his front steps.

“Oh my god, hey! I haven’t seen you in forever!” Seonghwa greets Yunho with a hug.

“Yeah, it’s been, like, a year or something! How have you been?”

Seonghwa shrugs and invites Yunho in. “Eh, could be better. Just school and stuff. I, ah, actually just declared a major.”

“Yeah? And what’s that?”

“You see… a while ago, Hongjoong told me to do something I like.”

 _Hongjoong._ Even saying his name feels strange after this long. “And I always liked reading and writing… figured I’d do something with that, so I’m in literature at the moment.”

“That’s awesome, Seonghwa. Really.” Yunho smiles, the chubby-cheeked, sunshine smile that everyone loves.

A chill travels down Seonghwa’s spine as he prepares himself for the next question. “Um… have you spoken to Hongjoong recently?”

Yunho sighs, smile disappearing almost immediately. “No… that’s the thing. He’s kind of cut himself off from everybody. You too, apparently.”

“To be fair, both of us have just been neglecting each other,” Seonghwa admits in a small voice. “I just, I know he’s busy, so I don’t want to bother him. And me, I’m busy too with school and all, but I just, I don’t know if we’re broken up or if he still loves me, or—”

“I think you’re overthinking it a little too much,” Yunho says, though his face remains uncertain. “I don’t know what to tell you, honestly. He hasn’t replied to me in _months_ , Seonghwa. And he used to reply to me within seconds.”

Seonghwa winces. “He’s still alive, right?”

Yunho chuckles. “Yeah. Even though he’s not responding to anyone, I keep up with his music. He’s got a pretty decent social media following, actually.”

And sure enough, when Yunho searches up the name ‘Kim Hongjoong’ on Twitter, there’s a little check mark next to his name. “ _Already_?” Seonghwa exclaims.

“I guess… someone saw him at one of his gigs,” Yunho says. “I think it might have been someone from overseas, too. Look, some of these promo tweets are in English. And not to mention the hundred thousands of followers already.”

“That’s… insane. It’s only been months, and he’s already blown up like this?”

“I guess his EP did really well, and whoever heard him and got him signed helped with promotions and getting his name out there.”

“Fucking hell.”

Seonghwa lets out a deep, weighted breath. There’s sweat on his brow, and his eyes hurt just from looking at Hongjoong’s Twitter feed, and the more he scrolls, the more he wonders if the majority of these tweets are actually _him._

_Is this who you are?_

“This… might be why he cut himself off from everybody so suddenly, actually,” Yunho says. “With newfound fame, you kind of build a new, separate life, you know? And maybe it wasn’t his choice.”

Seonghwa bites the inside of his lip, sparing himself another wince, as he stops on a photo.

Exactly a month ago, Hongjoong posted a selfie. His hair is light brown.

“Oh, fuck,” Seonghwa gasps, his heart plummeting, stopping, drowning. “Fuck.”

“What?” Yunho asks.

Brown. His hair is light brown. That was never a color Hongjoong spoke of. What happened to red? Why isn’t his hair red?

“Yunho, he…”

The tears reach his eyes before words reach his mouth.

Perhaps it wasn’t his choice to cut everyone off, but it was his choice to sign himself into this.

Seonghwa doesn’t sleep that night. There’s a sour taste in the back of his mouth, something unpleasant bubbling in his stomach, and acid burning his eyes.

🟦

Seonghwa stays off social media. He goes to school, studies, eats, sleeps, rinse, and repeat. Overcome by indignance, he erases Kim Hongjoong from his mind and focuses on thriving, or trying to.

During his second year of university, he becomes a lit tutor and gets paid for critiquing and revising papers. A win-win, if Seonghwa’s ever come across one.

He also meets Kang Yeosang, a fellow tutor, who sits at the table next to him at the library during tutoring sessions. He has long platinum blond hair and wears green contact lenses almost every day.

Seonghwa looks into his eyes one night, vision only slightly blurry from the wine, and wonders, _is this who you are?_

Eyes are the windows to the soul, they say.

But there’s no way Seonghwa can read into Yeosang’s soul. Not when there’s only one that he’s so deeply familiarized himself with, that no matter where he goes, bits and pieces of it always seem to show through the seams.

Seonghwa wouldn’t be asking _is this who you are?_ if it weren’t for him.

He lies with another man for the first time in over a year. It doesn’t feel right, but perhaps he expected that.

🟦

Seonghwa loses track of the time. One minute, he’s cramming for exams, and the next, he’s walking the streets of Seoul, hands buried in the felt pockets of his coat with a bag slung over his shoulder. He’s on his way to a magazine company, one who has taken quite a liking to his blog posts, for an interview.

He’s forgotten how many years it’s been since. A day. He can’t even remember the day and what was so significant about it. But he knows it’s been years.

He nails the interview. Of course he does.

He smiles with satisfaction, warmth branching out to every inch of his body. Finally, he’s done something _right_.

He is no longer the panicked homeschooled kid who hung his head low in the hallways of the new school, no longer the socially awkward Park Seonghwa that hung around the _real_ popular kids and relied on them for happiness. No, he is _Park Seonghwa_ , now a writer and editor for a notorious magazine.

There is a warm bed of his own waiting for him every night and a car that only he gets to drive.

He is thriving. Finally. _Finally._

_And I am so proud of you._

🟦

It’s September. Seonghwa is out at nearly one in the morning, when the streets are nearly bare, waiting at a crosswalk home to a total of three people: himself, a woman across the street from him, and another man standing next to him. The man is wearing a hood despite it not raining or snowing, and his coat is black and reaches his knees. He keeps his head ducked down, almost as if he doesn’t want anyone to see him.

It reminds Seonghwa a lot of himself.

The crosswalk beeps its long tone, and that’s when Seonghwa hears it.

His name. And at first, he doesn’t recognize who’s saying it.

The voice is a lot deeper from how he remembers it. But it comes from beside him, not within him.

The man. The man with the long black coat.

“Um… yes?” Seonghwa responds cautiously.

And then the man lifts his head.

Seonghwa’s entire world caves in. That’s right, the light brown. The little check mark and words he couldn’t read. The endless silence, the cut thread, the bits and pieces. Everything that Seonghwa built around himself seems to crumble the very second he sees this man’s face.

“You…”

“It’s been a while,” Hongjoong rasps.

An understatement, Seonghwa thinks.

It’s been years. _Years._ What felt like an eternity, without the one person he’s ever loved, the first person to love him, to make him _feel_ loved. The person who he may very well consider his savior in high school. His boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, whatever they are.

In the flesh, Kim Hongjoong stands before him. He lowers his hood, only to reveal a black beanie covering his head.

“How have you been?” Hongjoong asks like it’s _that_ simple.

It’s not simple, not even in the slightest.

But Seonghwa is mature. Seonghwa is different now.

“I’ve been well, thank you. You?”

_Why are we talking as if we’re strangers?_

Hongjoong chuckles, _familiar._ “I’ve been pretty good.”

The signal has changed back to ‘Don’t Walk.’

“Care to take a walk with me?” Hongjoong asks.

Ignoring the signal, Seonghwa follows Hongjoong. He walks.

🟦

They end up at a park similar to the one they used to pass by back in high school. It makes Seonghwa shudder, and it’s not even that cold.

“So you’ve been around, I’m guessing,” he says, biting back his fury.

“Mm. Been to Europe, the States, a few venues here and there.” Hongjoong stops in his track, on a brick pathway of faded reds. “And you?”

“I work for a magazine now,” Seonghwa says.

“Are you happy?”

_Am I happy?_

_Am I happy, having gone through years without seeing or hearing from the one person I ever loved? Though I am thriving, am I happy?_

“Yeah. I am.”

“That’s good. That’s really good.”

Seonghwa can’t even look at him in the eyes. It’s _pathetic._

“Seonghwa, look, I know I—”

“What, dropped off the face of the Earth?”

_Stop talking, Seonghwa. Before you make things worse._

_But that’s what you always do, isn’t it?_

“Hongjoong, I don’t know what the hell you want from me now, but if this is some attempt to… to reconcile or some shit, I don’t want to hear it.”

“Seonghwa—”

“You could’ve at least _told_ me what was going on! Look, I’m sorry I was negligent too. I should’ve made an effort to talk to you too, I should’ve messaged you, but—”

“Seonghwa!” Hongjoong exclaims suddenly, catching Seonghwa off guard.

“What?”

“I couldn’t message you because once I was signed, my phone was confiscated. I was halfway across the country and had no way of contacting you or Yunho or _anybody_. You think it was easy? It wasn’t! I’d lost everyone. I was sucked into work almost instantly, nonstop, twenty-four-seven. It’s been this way for four years now, you know.”

_Four years? Is that how long it’s been?_

Hongjoong’s eyes squeeze shut. “This is the first time I’ve been back in a long, long time, Seonghwa. I spent the most of my time these past few years overseas. I’m _exhausted_. I just… I want to talk to you, Seonghwa. I want some of my old life back.”

“And what if I don’t want to be that? I’m not just some piece of your old life! Didn’t I _mean_ something to you? Aren’t I just more than some… some _novelty_?”

“Fucking hell, Seonghwa, of course you were! You were everything to me!”

“Then _why_ , Hongjoong? Why did you—”

Midsentence, Hongjoong’s face twists into a scowl as he rips the beanie off his head, unmasking a head full of royal blue hair.

And just like that, Hongjoong is stealing the breath from his lungs just like he did the day he confessed his love.

“Don’t… don’t you dare think this wasn’t hard for me,” Hongjoong mutters, blinking rapidly. “I know it must have been hell, Seonghwa. I know you loved me. You were the first person to love me, and you were the first person I ever loved. I know I hurt you. But don’t… don’t try to tell me that it didn’t hurt for me too.”

“Hongjoong…”

Blue. His favorite color.

The day his parents took him away from their rural hometown, to a beach near a bustling city. The water was so clear, so bright, reflecting the sky blue off of the surface.

Blue.

Hongjoong. His favorite color.

"Your hair... it wasn't blue. It was light brown."

Hongjoong smiles sourly. "There's this thing called hairspray. The only time I dyed my hair was to color the roots blue when they grew in."

Seonghwa thinks back to the photos he'd seen and the million mile drop his heart did when he saw them. And as it turns out, blue was beneath it all along?

Hongjoong sighs. “I know I should’ve… I should’ve at least given you a warning. I shouldn’t have disappeared like that, but I was thrown into a life so foreign and terrifying and I couldn’t go a day without working and… it’s paid off, yes, but I left behind so fucking much. I guess this is what I get though.”

Seonghwa takes two brave steps forward, toe to toe.

“I can’t erase what I did and the hurt I caused you. And I know things can’t return to the way they were. But fuck, Seonghwa, I never stopped loving you.”

Seonghwa can tell there are blurs in both their visions. Fogged-up mirrors. Smoke inside glass. Seonghwa’s mouth twitches with words he wishes he could say, words of hurt that he just wants to scream because how _dare_ Kim Hongjoong change his life and just walk out of it like it meant nothing?

But the longer Seonghwa looks at him, _really_ looks at him, he comes to realize that maybe it didn’t mean nothing.

“Hongjoong… you… you know how much I loved you, right? Do you realize that I am who I am today because you and Yunho decided to butt yourselves into my personal space? I’m not that dorky kid from high school who didn’t know how to talk to people anymore. I’m here and I’m thriving and I… I know who I am, Hongjoong.”

Braver than Seonghwa, Hongjoong has always been. He is the one to reach out, to take Seonghwa’s hand and step even closer.

“And I am so, so happy that you do.”

“Do you, Hongjoong? Do you know who you are?”

Hongjoong sighs sadly, but smiles nonetheless.

“I think… I think I may never know who I am. But I think I’m okay with that.”

“And your favorite color?”

“Still black.”

Seonghwa takes another look at Hongjoong’s blue hair and tightens his grip in his hand.

“Seonghwa, you know I can’t stay,” Hongjoong says all of a sudden. “I’m still traveling. I still have to work a fuck ton. I can’t… I can’t stay with you.”

A harsh reality, but still a reality. Seonghwa has gone this long without Hongjoong. He can go this long again, maybe even longer.

And yet, his fingers still hurt, still tremble even though they are being held.

“I just… Seonghwa, I need you to know how much you’ve changed me. I look at myself in the mirror and I don’t hate what I see. I see someone who succeeded and failed, someone who’s loved, someone who has blue hair with black underneath it. I _love_ you, Seonghwa. I have for so fucking long. And it is because of you that I am here right now.”

Seonghwa draws in a shaky breath, tears feeling frozen at his eyes, when Hongjoong leans in and steals a kiss, and his heart, once again.

And he kisses him back, knowing very well that it may be the last time.

“I love you too, Hongjoong,” Seonghwa murmurs against those familiar lips. “I love you. I never stopped.”

Hongjoong sniffles and chuckles, his breath vaporizing.

“May tenth,” he says. “My prince.”

Seonghwa laughs as familiar memories fill his brain.

“Listen to it,” Hongjoong whispers.

Seonghwa stops laughing, confused. But Hongjoong kisses him again.

And the morning after, after Hongjoong has slid out of Seonghwa’s sheets and back out into his world, Seonghwa discovers a tiny scrap of paper right where Hongjoong’s body was.

_My prince, you are forever in my heart._

_Love, Hongjoong_

🟦

**III. Black**

Word on the street, Kim Hongjoong, solo musician who wears his wide rainbow range of colored hair proudly, is starting to wear hats.

Seonghwa pays attention. Odd, he thinks, but it’s not _that_ odd. Perhaps it’s just a shift in fashion sense.

However, five months after the trivial news tidbit is released, a low resolution paparazzi photo reveals that Kim Hongjoong’s hair is short, growing, and black.

Black.

Hongjoong’s favorite color.

After the one photo unknowingly taken, Hongjoong stops wearing hats. His hair is cut, much neater, much more visibly healthy, and _black._

The first concert of Hongjoong’s happens while Seonghwa is all the way across the world, but he’s up at eight in the morning just to watch a livestream from his tablet.

As professional cameras zoom in and out, transition from him to the thousands of adoring fans in his audience, Seonghwa holds his hands together.

There’s something on Hongjoong’s forearm arm. Something Seonghwa knows very well.

A card, just like the ones Hongjoong used to show off so triumphantly. Specifically, a king of hearts, but where there is supposed to be red, there is blue.

_“Royal blue for His Royal Highness.”_

A piece of him lives on.

The camera cuts to a shot of the audience, showcasing the sea of blue lights that illuminate the venue, reminding Seonghwa of why he loves the color so much in the first place.

A familiar guitar riff floods Seonghwa’s earbuds.

It’s that moment, when lyrics from May tenth sit still in his ears, and then his heart, that Seonghwa concludes, loving Hongjoong was blue.

His favorite color. His favorite song.

Even as time marches on, taking her sweet precious time decaying the lives of the people she brought forth, Hongjoong's lyrics will stay immortalized somewhere in the world, words that remind all of his listeners that he was in _love_.

Nothing will change that. Even if Hongjoong were to color his hair again, he would still have loved Seonghwa.

And loving Hongjoong is blue. It is so, so blue.

⬛

_My prince, you are forever in my heart._

_Love, Hongjoong_

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for coming on this journey with me.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/galaxysangs)


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